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Scandinavian Airlines; oh dear, oh dear continued

Well the saga of my missing bag still rolls on…

My bag remained at my parents house in England until Saturday 8th Jan when my mum received a call from SAS saying that a delivery company would be collecting my bag either the same day or on Sunday. They waited in all weekend but no one came, but late on Sunday evening a delivery telephoned and said he would pick up the bag first thing on Monday morning. My parents called me at 6pm on Monday evening and still the bag had not been collected!!! However at 8pm the driver arrived having been delayed in traffic and my bag was on its way back to Lapland (I naively thought).

I have emailed SAS twice about my experience and ticked the box requesting them to reply to me but have heard nothing. Today (Friday 14th) I telephoned their lost baggage service to find out where my bag was. After 15 minutes in a que someone eventually answered. I explained the situation and he searched on the computer for the location of my baggage. I listened to him tapping away on the computer for what seemed like 5 minutes until he eventually admitted “we don’t actually know where your bag is now”.

Oh dear I said…or words to that affect.

I will write to Heathrow for an update he said.

Can’t you ring them I asked?

No, we have to do it in writing. I’m sure your bag will arrive with you soon, but it can take up to six weeks!!

I told him what I thought of the whole experience and that I had had no contact from SAS. He gave me a number to SAS customer services ( I was surprised customer services even existed) and said you MUST call and talk with them and then he added “some people are having to wait three hours to get through to someone…”

So I called and was somewhat dismayed to hear a recording stating that “due to the recent volcanic eruption you may experience delays with our service….that’ll be the one in Iceland last April then!!! I found myself number 16 in the que, but said a recording if you do not wish to wait, you can enter your telephone number and we will call you back. I entered my number about 12 times both with and without the international code and each time a recording said “I’m sorry we do not recognise that number, please wait in the que”. After a further 20 minutes someone finally answered.

She confirmed that they did not know the location of my bag and when I told her how disgusted I was she replied “there’s really nothing I can do. What do you expect me to do, go to Heathrow and personally pick up you bag?” YES I replied!

When I asked why no one had replied to my emails she looked on her system and said oh yes one was sent on 4th Jan and one on 6th Jan. She informed me that they currently have a 6 WEEK delay in answering emails and so I should not expect a reply for some time yet.

Under the Montreal Convention airlines have 21 days to return your baggage or it must be treated as lost. I informed her of this and rather dismissively she said “it will take as long as it takes to retrieve your baggage…..maybe up to 6 weeks.” “British Airways are no better she added!!”

Keep your eyes open for the next installment and if you are travelling with Scandinavian Airlines don’t have anything you will need during your holiday in your checked-in baggage!!